Asiatic Breezes; Or, Students on The Wing

by Oliver Optic

  CHAPTER XIX

  THE JOURNEY OF THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL

  Captain Ringgold suggested to the magnate of the Fifth Avenue that hehad omitted something, as he pointed to the long piers which extendedout into the sea.

  "I had it on my tongue's end to mention them; but I am not muchaccustomed to speaking before an audience, and I forgot to do so,"replied Mr. Woolridge. "But then they are engineering work, and I doubtif this company would be interested."

  "I was wondering where they obtained all the stone to build them in thisplace, where there appears to be nothing but sand and mud," interposedMrs. Belgrave. "They must be nearly a mile long."

  "They are quite a mile long," replied Mr. Woolridge.

  "Did they bring the stone from the quarries away up the Nile, where theygot the material of which the pyramids are built?"

  "Not at all; that would have been about as big a job as digging out thecanal."

  "Hardly; for they could have brought them by water about all the way,"said the commander. "But the material did not come from thosequarries."

  "No; they made the rocks," added the magnate.

  "Made them!" exclaimed Mrs. Blossom. "Do you expect us to believe that?"

  "There is a great deal of such work done in the United States, and insome of our cities there are streets paved and sidewalks built ofmanufactured stone," replied Mr. Woolridge. "At the town which you see,the piers start out about two-thirds of a mile apart, and approach eachother till they are less than a third of a mile from each other. Theywere built to protect the port from the north-west winds which sometimesblow very fresh here, and to prevent the harbor of Port Said from beingchoked up with the Nile mud from the mouths of the great river.

  "These piers were constructed by a French firm. The first thing was tomanufacture the artificial stone, which was composed of seven partssand, of which there is a plentiful supply in this vicinity, and onepart of hydraulic lime, imported from France. I suppose the latter issomething like the cement used in New York in building sewers anddrains, or other works in wet places. This concrete was mixed bymachinery, then put into immense wooden moulds, just as you make a loafof sponge cake, Mrs. Blossom, where it was kept for several weeks. Theseblocks weighed twenty tons each."

  "Goodness! They were heavier than Mrs. Grimper's sponge cake!" exclaimedMrs. Blossom.

  "Considerably," laughed the magnate. "The solid contents of each werethirteen and a third cubic yards. How big a cubic block would that makein feet, young gentlemen? I hope you are not neglecting your mathematicsfor geography and sight-seeing."

  "About seven feet," replied Louis, after some mental figuring.

  "A little more than that," added the professor.

  "Seven feet is about the height of the cabin of this ship, and one ofthem would just stand up in it," continued Mr. Woolridge. "They madethirty of them every day, and twenty-five thousand were required."

  "This is about as wonderful as the immense work of the ancientEgyptians," said Mrs. Belgrave.

  "But all this labor was done by machinery. The moulds were removed fromthe blocks, and they were exposed to the air in order to harden themmore effectually. They were then hoisted on peculiar boats, built forthe purpose, with an inclined deck, from which they were slid into thesea. They made a tremendous splash when they were dumped overboard; andit was a sight worth seeing if we had happened to be here twenty-fouryears ago."

  "It wasn't convaynient for some of us to be here at that time," saidFelix.

  "That is so, my broth of a boy; but some things happened before you wereborn, as well as since."

  "Sure, the pyramids were built before your honor was barn."

  "True for you; some things happened before I was born, and even beforethe twin cupids came into the world; for I believe they are the oldestpersons on board," replied the magnate. "They kept dropping thesetremendous blocks into the sea till they came nearly to the level, andthen they built the walls as you see them now. I suppose you havenoticed that lighthouse on the little strip of land between the sea andLake Menzaleh. That is also built of these artificial stones, and it isone hundred and sixty-four feet high. It is provided with electriclights, which are to be seen from a distance of twenty-four miles. Itis, therefore, one of the largest in the world. I believe I have coveredthe ground now, and I won't say anything about Port Said till we aremoored in the grand basin."

  "You have disposed of the _pierres perdues_ very nicely indeed, Mr.Woolridge," said the professor.

  "Who are they?" asked the magnate, who had forgotten all the French heever knew.

  "Literally, 'lost stones,' as they were when they went overboard; butthat was what the French engineers called them."

  "Now, ladies and gentlemen, I desire to invite you to the upper deck,where I wish to say something to you about the Land of Goshen, and thusfinish up Egypt, except the portion we shall have in view as we continueon our voyage," said the commander rising from his seat.

  The ladies were handed down from the promenade by the gallant gentlemen,though, unfortunately, there were not enough of the former to go round;but no one but the captain and Louis presumed to offer his services toMrs. Belgrave or Miss Blanche. As the party approached the place wherethe conferences had usually been held, they saw that a change had beenmade in the appearance of things.

  The first novelty that attracted their attention was the large map whichwas suspended on a frame rigged against the mainmast. It was brilliantwith colors, with all the streams, towns, and lakes, properly labelled,upon it. A small table stood at the left, or port side, of it, coveredwith a cloth, with a Bible and a vase of flowers upon it. Chloe, thestewardess, had provided the latter from the pots which the ladies hadkept in the cabin since their visit to Bermuda.

  On the deck a large carpet had been spread out, and the thirteenarm-chairs had been placed in a semicircle, facing the map, with onebehind the table for the speaker for the occasion. As soon as thecompany had taken in this arrangement for the educational feature of thevoyage, they halted, and applauded it with right good-will.

  "Please to be seated, ladies and gentlemen," said the commander, as hehanded Mrs. Belgrave to the chair on the right of the table; and at thesame time he took his place behind the table.

  The party took their chairs according to their own fancies, and Mrs.Blossom managed to get at the side of Felix. At one side stood Mr.Gaskette and the two sailors who had assisted him in his work. They hadalso arranged the meeting-place from the direction of the captain. Someof the tourists wondered what the commander meant to do in the face ofall these preparations. It was not Sunday, or they would have come tothe conclusion that the usual religious service was to be held here; forthe Bible on the table pointed in this direction. As soon as the partywere seated the commander opened the Good Book at a marked place.

  "I see that some of you are surprised at the altered appearance of ourout-door hall," Captain Ringgold began. "I regard the instructiveelement of our voyage as one of the greatest importance; and if I wereto fit out the ship again for this cruise, I should provide an apartmenton this deck for our conference meetings. But I have done the best Icould under the circumstances, with the assistance of Mr. Gaskette, thesecond officer of the ship.

  "I see also that the map before you has challenged your attention,"continued the commander, who proceeded to explain in what manner he hadcaused the maps to be made. "Mr. Gaskette has been my right-hand man inthis work. He is not only a good navigator and a thorough seaman, but heis a highly educated gentleman, a graduate of Harvard College, a personof artistic tastes, as you may have learned from your intercourse withhim. The map before you is only one of three already completed, and thework is in progress upon several others."

  The company, including the ladies, received this explanation withgenerous applause, and all the boys called for the subject of thecaptain's remarks. He was presented to them, and thanked the commanderfor his kind words, and hoped the maps would prove to be useful in theconferences.

  "
I will begin what I have to say about the Land of Goshen by reading afew verses from the first chapter of Exodus: 'And Joseph died, and allhis brethren, and all that generation. And the children of Israel werefruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceedingmighty; and the land was filled with them. Now there rose up a new kingover Egypt, which knew not Joseph. And he said unto his people, Behold,the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we: comeon, let us deal wisely with them; lest they multiply, and it come topass, that, when there falleth out any war, they join also unto ourenemies, and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land.Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with theirburdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Ramses.'

  "Ramses II. is generally regarded as the Pharaoh of the oppression, anddoubtless the Israelites suffered a great deal of persecution in hisreign," the commander proceeded as he closed the Bible. "But the one whoproposed in the verse I have read to 'get them up out of the land, wasthe successor of Ramses II., 'the new king over Egypt,' Merenptah, theson of Ramses, and now believed to be the Pharaoh of the Exodus. Hereigned about 1325 years A.D.

  "The Land of Goshen, where the Israelites lived, is the north-easternpart of Egypt, the whole of it lying to the east of the Damietta branchof the Nile," continued the commander, using his pointer upon the map."Through this region then, as now, there were fresh-water canals, bywhich the country was made very productive, and the people were veryprosperous. The city of Ramses, built by the Israelites, was doubtlessthe most important in Goshen. It is the ancient Tanis, the ruins ofwhich are still to be seen. Pithom, the other city mentioned in theScripture, is here," and the speaker pointed it out. "It is quite nearthe Arabian Desert, and the present fresh-water canal runs within a fewmiles of it.

  "With the birth of Moses, and the finding of the child in the ark orbasket by the daughter of Pharaoh, and her adoption of it, you are allfamiliar; and the story is quite as interesting as any you can find inother books than the Bible. Though of the house of Levi, he became anEgyptian for the time; but he claimed his lineage, and became the leaderof the Israelites, and conducted them out of Egypt.

  "A great deal of study has been given by learned men to the route bywhich this was accomplished. Most of them agreed that he started fromTanis, or Ramses. On that narrow strip of land between the lake and theMediterranean, which you have seen from the promenade, was one of theusual roads from Egypt into Asia, and was the one which led intoPalestine, the Holy Land. Where Moses and his followers crossed the RedSea is still an open question, though hardly such to devout people whoaccept literally the Bible as their guide in matters of faith and factboth. These accept the belief that the crossing of the Red Sea, with themiracles attending it, was in the portion near Suez.

  "Heinrich Karl Brugsch, a learned German and eminent Egyptologist, bornin Berlin in 1827, has constructed a theory in relation to the exodus ofthe Israelites which is more ingenious than reasonable to the piousreader of the Scripture. It would be hardly profitable for us to go intothe details of his reasoning, though he uses the Bible as the foundationof his statements. There were two roads from Egypt to Palestine, the onementioned, and one farther south, not so well adapted to caravans onaccount of the marshy country it traverses.

  "The German savant believed they departed by the northern road. In theBritish Museum is a letter written on papyrus over three thousand yearsago, in which an Egyptian writer describes his journey from Ramses inpursuit of two runaway servants. The days of the month are given; andhis stopping-places were the same as those of the Israelites. (Exodusxii. 37): 'The children of Israel journeyed from Ramses to Succoth;' andthis is the region east of Goshen. (Exodus xiii. 20): 'And theyjourneyed from Succoth, and encamped in Etham, in the edge of thewilderness,' or the desert.

  "This was also the route of the Egyptian letter writer. Then thepilgrims were commanded to turn, and encamp at a point between Migdoland the sea, (Exodus xiv. 2.) He found the fugitives had gone towardsthe wall, meaning the forts by which Egypt was defended from Asiaticenemies. Following the same route, the Israelites came to the SarbonianLake. This is a long sheet of water on the isthmus," said the commander,as he pointed it out on the map. "It was, for it no longer exists,separated from the Mediterranean by such a strip as that which you seehere by Lake Menzaleh.

  "Diodorus Siculus informs us that the Sarbonian Lake was filled with arank growth of reeds and papyrus bushes, which made it very dangerous totravellers. Strong winds blew the sands of the desert over the surface,studded with leaves, so as to hide the water; and the traveller mightwalk upon it and sink to his death. The same ancient writer says that anarmy with which Artaxerxes, King of Persia, intended to invade Egypt,being unacquainted with this treacherous lake, got into it, and waslost.

  "Brugsch believes this was the lake through which the Israelites passed,and that Pharaoh's army encountered a storm, were lost, and perished asdid the Persian forces. But we must drop the subject here, though it maycome up again when we arrive at Suez, where others believe the sixhundred thousand Israelites went over dry shod, while Pharaoh and hishosts perished in the closing waters."

  The company had certainly been deeply interested in the subject, and thecommander retired from the rostrum with a volley of applause.